


Cleopatra

by JustLikeCatsDoISuppose



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: (no alcohol abuse they just send time in bars), Aged-Up Character(s), Alcohol, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Author!Keith, Based on Cleopatra by The Lumineers, Explicit Language, Fluff, I hope you have enjoyed my awkward, Keith drives a taxi, Lance and Keith do not die, Lance is a marine science researcher, M/M, Multiple Timelines, Pidge is the best friend in her own little way, Set in Boston, Songfic, a whole lot, broganes, but there is mention of major character death, drawn-out tags, he has two kids, hunk is the best, i'm weak, keith has a daughter, klance, this will be happier than the actual song
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-06-21
Packaged: 2019-02-27 05:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13241655
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustLikeCatsDoISuppose/pseuds/JustLikeCatsDoISuppose
Summary: “Lance,” Keith said dumbly, eyes glued to the Honda emblem.“Have you two met?”Keith’s eyes were growing as dry as his throat.Lance just laughed softly, a sound mostly devoid of humor.  Keith knew all too well what sad sounded like on Lance.  “Once or twice, yeah.”





	1. August 2nd, 2018

**Author's Note:**

> I am so excited to be posting this! I have put a lot of work into a master document.... it's so chaotic guys... save me......
> 
> But anyways! Here's this! It is based off of the best song ever, Cleopatra, which is a true story that a taxi driver told to the lead singer and I highly suggest that you listen. It was the sole inspiration for all of this. 
> 
> This story will be written in two timelines -- the major one, in which the story plays out, with flashbacks throughout. Pay attention to the date, it will make more sense.
> 
> I hope you like it, I hope you love it, I hope you have a good day. Read on!

 

The raindrops hitting the windshield were heavy and intermittent that day.  The car was still cold, and Keith could feel the chill through his gloves.  He glanced at the heat controls and pressed his foot to the break as he came up on a little Honda.  The light changed to red as he approached, and he turned his attention to the heat for a moment, adjusting it to regular human temperatures.  Voices from outside drifted in and out of his hearing.  

“Gettin’ through your workday in a cool, smooth way, 106.3 smooth FM... And now!  Folks, it’s the number one mattress sale in Hartford -- don’t miss out on-” Keith switched the station.

_ I was Cleopatra _ , the radio sang, and Keith put his hand down.  The voices outside got closer.   _ I was young and an actress _ ...  A horn blared from somewhere behind him.  The light remained red, staring at him as if it was watching a spectacle.  It stuck around as another turn lane got the green, and Keith tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.   ... _ when you knelt by my mattress, and asked for my hand.   _

And then there was knocking on the passenger window, and Keith was raising a brow at it.   _ I was sad you asked it...   _ On the other side of the glass there was a large, smiling face and a waving hand.  Keith fumbled with the window switch.   _...as I laid in a black dress, with my father in a casket... _

“Hi there!” The man greeted.  “We noticed that you’re from Boston, and we were actually just headed there…” ... _ I had no plans. _

Keith turned on the meter at the exact moment the light turned green.  “Hop in.”   _ And I left the footprints... _

The man uttered a cheery, “Thanks!” as he opened the door, climbing in and scooting unceremoniously to the other side.  “We really appreciate it-” another butt hit the seat, and the door slammed “-you know how buses are… this is much nicer.” ... _ The mud stained on the carpet. _

“It’s no problem,” Keith assured the man, sending a small smile through the mirror.  “It won’t be a cheap one, though.  Where to?”   _ And it hardened like my heart did, when you left town.   _ He pressed his foot to the accelerator.

The man ran a hand through the air.  “It’s fine.  Definitely worth it.  We’re headed to 22 Arden Road, in Newton.” 

_ But I was late for this, late for that, late for the love of my life. _

Keith saw the man’s head turn to his company, and he ran his left hand down the wheel, crossing his right over it.  The highway had a speed limit of 50, but the Honda in front of him was only doing about 40.  Keith sighed.

_ And when I die alone, when I die alone, when I die I’ll be on time _ …

“I like your gloves,” A voice said, and a shiver went up Keith’s spine. 

His mind went blank, void of all thoughts and running on too many emotions for any one of them to become apparent.  So he squeezed the steering wheel, and floundered.  

“Very emo-chic.”  

He knew he should look in the mirror.  He also knew that he should  _ definitely not _ look in the mirror.

The first thing he saw in the mirror was the man from before, and when he angled his head to the left, he was greeted with eyes so familiar he felt nauseous.  He searched for his tongue, and blinked away to look at the road.  It was curving, so he turned the wheel, hoping reflexes were a safe driving strategy.  

“Lance,” Keith said dumbly, eyes glued to the Honda emblem.

“Have you two met?”

Keith’s eyes were growing as dry as his throat.  

Lance just laughed softly, a sound mostly devoid of humor.  Keith knew all too well what sad sounded like on Lance.  “Once or twice, yeah.” 

“That’s so funny,” Lance’s friend remarked.  “Do you come down here a lot?”

Keith cleared his throat, and ignored the shake in his hands.  “Not really.”

Lance’s friend nodded.  “Yeah, it’s quite a ways for a Boston cab.  What brought you down here?”

There was silence for a long moment.  Could Keith say that?  Here?  With  _ him _ in the car?  The air was thick and awkward, and Keith fumbled to turn the heat down when he felt sweat gathering on his back, a flush taking hold of his cheeks.  Lance hummed with amusement, and Keith knew he’d noticed it.  

“You okay buddy?”  The friend prompted.  Keith slowed the vehicle down as they turned onto an onramp.  He probably had to say it.  He probably shouldn’t say it.  

“My daughter goes to University of Connecticut.”

_ The only gifts from my lord were birth and a divorce _ , the radio sang, and Keith felt like he was shrinking, shrinking…

“Oh that’s nice!  What’s she studying?”

He looked in the mirror.  

“Music with an emphasis in performance.”  Keith’s voice said, on autopilot.  He was looking at Lance, and Lance was looking at him, mouth open slightly and eyes wide. Lance blinked, and Keith looked away.  

The words did not come easily, but they came, which Keith was certain would have been impossible for any other subject.  “She plays the sax.”  Lance’s friend hummed in interest.  

“That’s fun.  How does she like the University so far?  I know a couple of the music professors…” Keith raised an eyebrow.

“She loves it.  She’s about to go into her third year.”  He coughed.  “You know the professors?”

“Yeah,” the man affirmed.  “We  _ are _ professors.  Just, you know, not music.”

Something clicked in Keith’s head, and he snapped his gaze to the mirror.

“Marine science?” he asked, hope seeping into his voice.  

Both passengers were quiet for a second, and then Hunk asked, “Lance, you okay?”

Lance made eye contact with Keith as he said, “Yeah,” and Keith couldn’t figure out who he was talking to.  But if he had just affirmed what Keith thought he had-

Keith felt a smile on his face.  It was just a little one that snuck through the panic, but it was present.  

“You have a daughter,” Lance said.

“You’re a Marine Science professor,” Keith said back.  

“You… drive a taxi,” Lance continued.

“You can afford a ninety-minute ride.”  

Lance nodded.  

Lance’s friend broke in.  “How do you guys know each other?”  His voice was far more hesitant than before.  

“Hunk, meet Keith,” Lance said pointedly, and Keith heard Hunk’s intake of breath.

“Oh my god,” Hunk muttered.  “You’re  _ the _ Keith, huh.”

Keith glanced at the mirror, making brief eye-contact with Lance.   _ The Keith _ .  

“I have a title.”

“You have a title,” Lance confirmed.  Hunk cursed softly under his breath, and Keith turned up the radio, navigating back to the jazz station.  The next time he glanced in the mirror, Lance wasn’t looking at him.  

Keith let himself fade into the silent, automated mode he saved for particularly quiet, long fares.  Internally, he was a mess; if his mind was the control room of a ship it was blaring with so many alarms that any one of them was unidentifiable, the ship rocking in a horrible storm and everything inside it being wrenched from its proper place.  As he turned the steering wheel with the curve of the highway, Keith compared his consciousness to someone sitting on the storm cloud above it all, observing the catastrophe and making no moves to deal with any of it.  Things were that way for the entrance onto i-84, the switch to i-90, three more Hondas.  Keith drove, and the car was quiet.  Keith ignored, and the car was peaceful.  

About an hour in, when they were careening down i-90 behind a silver RAM pickup, Keith looked in the rearview mirror and saw eyes looking back at him.  

Lance broke the silence with, “Hunk fell asleep.”  Keith raised an eyebrow in amusement.  “He didn’t sleep much last night.  The guy’s got a weakness for car rides though; melatonin is nothing compared to a highway.  He’s like a baby…” Lance cleared his throat.  “Anyway.”  

There was something about the way Lance spoke of Hunk that both soothed and saddened Keith.  It sounded more familiar, more like the rambling he remembered.  It was nice, to see that, comforting.  It also made his throat close up and his chest ache, but he pretended to ignore that.

Lance inhaled, leaning forward in his seat.  

“You-” he stopped.  Up until that point he had been closed off, but the way he stumbled over the word had Keith’s hopes rising.

“Fuck this,” Lance muttered, and Keith heard a seat belt unbuckle.  Panic bloomed in his chest.  

“Lance?!” Eyes wide, Keith whipped his head around quickly.  He was met with Lance’s head -- the top of it, specifically.  He leaned back into the driver’s seat, gluing his eyes to the road as Lance clambered over the console.  He squirmed around in the passenger’s seat for a moment before buckling himself in and turning Keith’s way.  

Keith suppressed a smile and a grimace all at once.  “Most of my fares don’t do that,” he remarked.  

“I’m unique now.”

Keith didn’t look at him.  “You were always unique.”

The words meant a lot of things, so Keith did a lot of ignoring.  Lance cleared his throat.  

“I uh, felt like…” Lance trailed off.  “I found one of your books once,” he blurted.  

“Oh?”  Keith pressed the accelerator.  “Which one?”  
“Oh jeez… I don’t remember the title… it was scientific; I remember thinking it was funny.”

Anxiety gripped Keith’s chest again.  “Operational Definition?” he asked.  His voice shook.  Lance made a sound of affirmation.

“Yeah, that one.”

An awkward silence descended.  Apparently Lance wanted to get right into it.  Either that or he hadn’t read the book, because memories of writing it filtered back to Keith like smooth, warm stones.  He felt like he was swallowing them.

“Did you read it?”

“I got nine pages in.”

The words would have soothed Keith, if he only remembered what was on pages 1-9.  He knew it was a collection of shorts, like most of his work, and he knew that the first one was about a man and the boy that was, and wasn’t, his son.  

“Why’d you stop?” Keith asked, and cursed himself.  

Lance side-eyed him.  “Do you want the honest answer?”  Keith pressed his lips together.  

“So you’re a professor?”

Lance hummed.  “Seven years now.  Before this, it was Bristol Channel in Wales and the Gulf of Cali.  This one pays the best though.”

“No grad school?”

“Nah, I went to grad school.  Ph.D, marine science.”

Keith frowned.  He could’ve sworn…  

“Where?”

“Florida Institute of Technology.”

“Oh,” Keith said, dumbly.  “Not the one back in Atlanta?  I thought you were going there.”

Keith was lying, of course.  He knew Lance didn’t go to grad school in Atlanta, but at one point in time, that had been the truth.  Lance didn’t need to be the wiser.

“Yeah, I was gonna.  But y’know…”

Keith didn’t know if he knew.

“Anyway, I took an internship in the Dominican Republic after I graduated from Atlanta.  Helped me actually afford grad school -- the last thing I needed was more loans.”  Keith snorted in agreement.  “Plus.  Getting away was… I thought it was good.  It felt good, most days.  The other days…”

Keith thought about days on the road, days on the side of it.  Days alone.  “I know them well,” he admitted.

Lance hummed.  “That’s right, we’re both wild.  When did you leave Atlanta?”

_ I left when you did _ , Keith didn’t say.  

“When I was twenty-two,” Keith said.  

“Oh, wow.  A while ago.”

A smirk wiggled onto Keith’s lips.  “A little, yeah.”  And again, a moment of silence.  Then, “I went up to Richmond.”

“Virginia?”

“Yeah.”

“I hear it’s pretty.”

“It’s not bad.”

Keith flexed his hands on the steering wheel.

“Why do you play jazz?”

Keith almost laughed.  Lance’s voice sounded strained, like he was searching for something -- Keith had no idea why he’d moved to the front seat.  Obviously it was to talk to Keith, but Lance wasn’t being as sociable as Keith remembered, likely for the same reason Keith was grinding his teeth.  

“It’s relaxing -- this kind, at least.  People usually don’t complain about jazz like this.”

“You don’t like it then?”

Keith’s chest ached.  “No, I do.  Although I prefer a slightly… different style.”  A smile twisted on his lips, and the smell of cigars and bourbon came back to him.  Gleaming gold metal, black suits… music stores, tiny dress shoes, worn-out folders.  Lounges.  Recitals.  

“More sax,” he summarized.

Lance chuckled.  Keith saw his fingers reach out to the radio before he could react, and a moment later Lance was flipping through the stations, pausing when he got to one of them, hand hovering.  AC/DC shook through the speakers, and Keith focused on stilling his finger.  

“You still like these guys?”

Keith threw him a look.   _ Duh _ .

Lance grinned, and his fingers went back to the radio, pushing buttons until a very different song was wrenching its way out of the speakers.  

“Oh  _ god _ ,” Keith groaned, flicking his head back.  “ _ Please _ tell me that you do not still listen to this shit at forty six.”

“Pop has no age, my friend.”  

Keith grumbled.  Lance’s laugh sounded like just another genre of music, and Keith swallowed down memories of when it had been his favorite.  

The next half an hour went pretty much like that; Lance would make a comment, Keith would either sass him and bicker or use that one smile he’d saved for a rainy day.  He only realized it a ways in, and decided to ignore the repercussions, because admitting anything to himself at that moment in time would shove him down the wrong side of a very thin line.  Keith was just grateful for the cars around him and the rainy asphalt, his legitimate reason for avoiding Lance’s gaze.  There were other reasons, too, but they were not so easily justified.  

Lance was telling the story of the over-excited student, Leanne, when Keith realized that this drive had a destination. 

“Students like that are destined for greatness,” Lance sighed.  Keith nearly scoffed at the dramatics.  

“Reminds me of someone I used to know,” he admitted.  The Honda they were following now was blue, shaped like a loaf of bread.  

“Who?”

Keith’s lips twitched with amusement.  “You.”

“Oh,” Lance responded.  They were back to silence.

“What part of Newton is Arden Road in?” Keith asked, out of both necessity and a desire to break the spell the both of them kept falling under.  It was like their past was lurking beneath the surface, waiting for the right moment to spring up and trap them.  

“Uh…” Lance fumbled with his phone.  It’s Hunk’s house; I’m not sure… oh, uhm, it’s in the middle?”

“Newton Centre?”

“No… to the left of that.”

Keith sighed.  “The left?  Is it in West Newton?”

“Shouldn’t you know?” Lance groaned, tapping about on his phone.

Keith grunted.  He should know; he’d driven every which way in Newton.  “I’m not a map, Lance,” he said, instead.  

“It’s below West Newton… off of Lowell?”

_ That _ he knew.  “Near Turnpike?”

Lance squinted at his phone.  “No, it’s on the bottom of Lowell.”

Keith chuckled.  “The  _ bottom _ .”

The blue Honda turned onto Commonwealth Ave, and he followed.  

“How long have you been driving a cab?” Lance asked, gazing out of the window.  

Keith wrinkled his forehead.  He started when Lisa was in her freshman year, so she was fifteen… “About five, six years.”  

Lance whistled.  Keith slowed the car to a stop, blinking at the stoplight.  The road sign read Chestnut.  They were close, and Keith’s heart was making its way up his throat.  

“That’s quite a while.  What were you up to before that?” 

Would Lance say it?  Keith looked at him while the light was red, analyzing the wrinkles in his forehead and the smile lines near his mouth.  He didn’t seem mad, but… there was something tentative in his manner, a press of his lips, a quirk of his eyebrows, that had Keith guessing he wouldn't ask.  

“A couple things.”  The light turned green.  “I bartended, I wrote.”

“You bartended?” Voice tinged with surprise, Lance pressed.  “Where?”

“In Richmond, and here, a little.”

“Yeah but like,  _ where _ ?”

Persistent as ever.  He was tentative, yes, but he was still Lance, in a more mature, calmer way.  There was a chance…

They passed a road called Wauwinet.  They were closer.  

“A jazz lounge and a bar.”

Lance hummed.  “That’s cool.”  And then, after a moment, “Should I wake up Hunk?”  He said it much quieter, and Keith let himself believe for a second that Lance didn’t want to leave before swallowing that hope, too.  

“Probably.”  

He turned onto Lowell, leaving the blue Honda.  There was no one in front of him, here.  No one to follow.  

The next thing he knew, he was twenty-two again and blushing as Lance’s shoulder brushed his.  He was solid and real as he pushed against Keith, and Keith struggled to ignore that as well.  It wasn’t the time, wasn’t the time, wasn’t the-

“Hey Hunk, we’re almost there.”

A groan came from the backseat.  

“Come on buddy.”  

Keith turned onto Auburn.  

“Number twenty-two?”

“Yeah,” Hunk grunted, and Lance leaned back into his seat.  “It’s on the end, to the left- Lance? How-” Hunk promptly stopped speaking, and Keith glanced over at Lance to find him looking at Hunk, eyebrows raised.  Hunk cleared his throat.  “Right here.”  

Keith pulled over to the right, looking at 22 Arden Road, to their left.  It was a cute house, tan and surrounded by trees, with bushes framing the doorway and white trim. 

“I can pay,” Lance offered, and Keith swiveled his head around to look at him, eyes flickering to the meter.   _ $214.25, _ it read.  

“Okay, I’ll just- I’ll meet you inside.”  Hunk leaned around the seat, smiling brightly at Keith.  “Thank you so much for the ride!”  

And then he was gone, plodding across the street with a duffel bag over his shoulder.  

Lance was already rifling through his wallet.  “Do you take Visa?”

Keith did take Visa.  “No.”  

Lance cursed.  “Amex?”

Yes.  “No.”

“Credit?”

Yup.  “No.”

Keith was smirking.

“Damnit.”  Lance dropped his wallet in his lap, looking up at Keith.  “Do you really only take cash?”

Keith’s smirk widened.  “No.”  

“Great!  Wha-”

“I don’t take cash either.”

Lance froze, and closed his mouth.  His face displaying how unimpressed he was, Lance reached a hand forward to shove Keith.  “You dick.”  Lance smiled.  “Stop grinning.  How do I pay you?”

Keith shrugged.  “Don’t.”  Lance had been uncertain the entire trip, but that moment saw his expression more vulnerable than any other point.  

“Why?”

Keith cleared the meter, avoiding Lance’s gaze.  “I wasn’t looking for a fare, and I was heading here anyway.  I’m not gonna make you pay two hundred dollars for a cab ride.”

“It was a really long cab ride,” Lance persisted, and the tone of their conversation changed yet again.  It was starting to give Keith a headache -- banter one minute and stunted progress the next.  

“You’re not paying me two hundred dollars for a cab ride that the cab would have driven anyway.”

Lance groaned.  “You’re so stubborn, oh my god.”

Keith bit his lip.  Here was his opportunity, and against all of the advice he had generated on the drive, he jumped.  

“You could pay me back… differently.”

Keith heard Lance’s breath catch, and saw his eyes widen in astonishment.  

“I- uh, I mean… Keith…”

Keith wanted to slap himself in the face.  “I meant coffee,” he blurted out.  Why had he said it like that?  Way to make things awkward  _ again _ .  “Or no coffee.  Or something else or -- literally anything.  Except for sex.  I did not mean sex.”

“Yes.”

“And you don’t have to agr- yes?” 

Lance laughed lightly.  “Yeah.  Yes.”  Then he coughed.  “Not the sex.  The uh- the other thing.  Things.  Coffee sounds good.”  

“Coffee, then.  To… catch up.”

Lance nodded vigorously, and a smile invaded his face.  It was one of the soft ones, the small ones, the ones that Keith used to like the best because they were the ones Lance never knew he was wearing.  

Lance nodded one last time and opened the door, climbing out of the car and turning around, opening his mouth as if to say something, smiling again, and closing the door without a word.  He stood there, staring at it for a moment, as if he had unfinished business.  Keith had to agree.  

Lance stepped back as Keith pulled into the road, signalling left.  He watched the rearview mirror as he eased into the road, leaving the Lance an out of place professor standing in the suburbs, watching a ghost drive away.

  
  



	2. December 14, 1990

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I like your gloves,” the boy said in a noticeably different tone from the one he’d used with Shiro. “Very emo-chic.”
> 
> Keith could not have been more lost. 
> 
> “Excuse me?”
> 
> The boy reached forward grab Keith’s hand, pulling them into a shake. His smile was dazzling, and Keith had to blink a couple of times to shake it off. “The name’s Lance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two down! I wrote this chapter in one sitting because I was so excited -- welcome to the nineties, everybody! This chapter and the next one are a bit short; chapters are going to vary in length. I have a couple monsters planned, but this is a pretty typical length. I reset the chapter count to 15 but that is still a rough estimate, as I have a tendency to drastically change things at any given time. I also don't have a solid updating schedule, just a rule: the next chapter has to be written before I can publish the previous one, because invariably I'll go back ad change several things while writing the next. 
> 
> So that's my spiel. I'll probably end up posting every week or two, depending on time. On another note -- nearly 130 hits?? 13 kudos??? Three of you actually bookmarked this chaos?!! EvEryOnE who commented was so sweet!!! Thank you guys so much, I'm so glad y'all are liking it. There are many mysteries yet to be revealed (￣ω￣) 
> 
> I'll be quiet now and let you read. Enjoy!

 

The raindrops hitting the windshield were heavy and intermittent that day.  Keith adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, clenching his jaw and resisting the urge to lean on the horn.  The Honda in front of him was going _very slow_ in a moderately slow zone, and by the third time it unexpectedly slowed from 25 to 15, Keith tapped the horn.  

They stayed at 15 the rest of the way.

When he finally pulled into the gravel area beside the garage, Keith calmbered out of the car and walked swiftly past three others parked haphazardly around the space, one hand held up to shield his eyes.  A light turned green at the intersection to his right, and the sound of engines drowned out patter of raindrops on the garage doors beside him.  

It was nicer inside.  The smell of oil and Shiro’s favorite cleaner had Keith calming down significantly, even more so when his brother appeared from the office, phone to his ear and nodding.  He shot Keith a bright smile and a wave before responding to the phone.  

“Yes, that’s fine, just bring it over.  That’ll be a short drive; I bet you can make it.  And if she stops, grab a payphone and call this number, okay?  We’ll get someone to tow you.  That’s a cost you want to avoid if possible, though.”  

There was a muffled response from the other end, and Shiro followed the cord back into the office.  When he returned, he trotted over to Keith and wrapped him up in a big hug.  

“Hey there bud, how’s it goin?”

Keith grimaced, and Shiro laughed.  

“That kinda day, eh?”  He patted Keith’s shoulder.  “We’ve got a client coming in any minute now.”  Keith perked up at that.  Clients were fun -- not the clients themselves, of course.  That was Shiro’s area of expertise.  Keith just liked their cars, their bikes.

“The one you were talking to on the phone?”

“Yeah, a kid from Georgia Tech.  ‘Bout your age.”  

Keith pursed his lips.  “Great.”

“Come ‘ere, help me set up.  I’m gonna raise one of the doors.”

Keith did as he was told, and a few minutes later he turned around to find a metallic blue Toyota Corolla pulling into the garage, complete with a liftback.  Shiro waved as it sputtered inside, stopping in the middle of the room.  Keith busied himself with organizing the tools in front of him.  

“Hey!  Looks like you made it in one piece,” Shiro greeted.

“I did, but I don’t know how well Blue made it,” the client responded.  Keith’s hands fumbled over a wrench upon hearing his accent -- it was very slight, but very present, and very hispanic.  Far different from the Georgian drawl Keith was used to hearing.  

“Well, we can take a look at her now if you like.  Keith!”

Keith furrowed his eyebrows in distaste, and turned around to see Shiro standing next to a very, very attractive man.  He bit his lip as he stalked over, nodding once in greeting.  The boy just looked at him, a slight smile pulling at the edge of his mouth.  

He gave off a frazzled yet confident aura with worn out tan pants and ruffled hair tied together with a cocked hip and a snappy turtleneck.  Keith noticed in amusement that it was the same color as his crime-against-humanity car.  

And it smelled worse than it looked.

“When’s the last time you checked your oil?” Shiro prompted, opening up the hood.  Keith pulled his eyes from the boy across from him, already reaching past the engine for the dipstick.

“Uh, I don’t really remember.”  He had the grace to sound sheepish, but Keith scoffed anyway.  Shiro nudged him with his elbow.  Keith made no apology; the guy was an idiot.

Keith pulled a shop towel from his back pocket to wipe off the dipstick, inserting it again and pulling it out to see… no mark.  Yep.  Idiot.

“Aha,” Shiro said.  “You aren’t out of oil, because Blue here’s still runnin,’ but you’re close.  I’m gonna bet you have a leak.”  Keith made his way around the car, squatting behind it.  He followed the trail of drips from the car to the door with his eyes, and looked back at Shiro, nodding.  Then he glanced to the right just in time to see the boy turn away, rubbing the back of his neck.  Keith stood up, and came back over.  

“...that’s a leak,” Shiro was confirming.  “We’ll take a look at her and see if we can tell ya where it is -- this should be pretty easy.  And inexpensive,” he added with a smile.  The boy was visibly relieved.  

“I can’t give you a quote until-”

He was cut off by the ring of the office phone, and before he knew it, Keith was watching Shiro jog away, yelling, “Just a sec!  Keith!”

Keith suppressed a groan and pivoted away from Shiro only to be met with an outstretched hand.  A fresh wave of awkward descended over the situation.

“I like your gloves,” the boy said in a noticeably different tone from the one he’d used with Shiro.  “Very emo-chic.”

Keith could not have been more lost.  

“Excuse me?”

The boy reached forward grab Keith’s hand, pulling them into a shake.  His smile was dazzling, and Keith had to blink a couple of times to shake it off.  “The name’s Lance.”

Keith eyed him warily.  “Keith.”

The smile became a little brighter, if possible.  

“Nice to meet you, Keith.”

Keith gave another stiff nod and stepped back to the hood of the car, pulling a flashlight out of his pocket.  

As he poked around under the hood, he got the distinct feeling of being watched.  

“So,” Lance chirped.  “What was Shiro saying about quotes?”

Keith grit his teeth and leaned over further.  Nothing looked weird from the top… maybe behind.

“We can’t give you a quote until we know what we have to do.”

Everything still looked normal.  He’d have to actually follow procedure.

“I see.”  There was a pause, and then, “Well, take your time.  I have plenty of things to entertain me.”

Keith hit his head on the hood.  

“ _Fuck_ ,” he spat under his breath, clutching his head.  

“Woah, you okay there?”  

Keith maneuvered himself away from the hood and found concerned eyes staring at him as he straightened up.  

“Yes,” he muttered, biting his lip.  He could feel heat spreading over his cheeks.

“Be careful, we wouldn’t want somebody like you getting banged up.”

“Somebody like me?”  Keith prompted, taking a few steps to grab a red creeper from the wall.

“Mhm.  You know,” he tilted his head to the side with a smile that bordered on dangerous.  “The pretty ones.”

Keith let the creeper fall to the ground with a loud _smack_ , glaring at Lance and taking a small amount of pleasure from his jump.  

“I’m fine, thank you,” he deadpanned.  He wandered back over to a table and shucked off his jacket before grabbing some dye, a UV flashlight, and yellow safety glasses.  

“You don’t need to stick ‘round, y’know,” Keith remarked.  

“Eh, I have time.”

 _Great,_ Keith refrained from saying.  He returned to the car wearing the glasses, and unscrewed the dye.

“What’s that?”

Keith glanced at the dye.

“Dye.”

Lance leaned forward, one eyebrow raised.  

“What for?”

Keith unscrewed the oil cap.  “You pour it in with the oil and then find it with a UV light,” he explained, tipping a bit inside and straightening up, screwing the caps back on.

“Oh, that’s cool.”

“I didn’t come up with it.” Keith escaped the dialogue by easing himself onto the creeper.  When he laid down all the way, he found himself looking up at the widest, most annoying and infuriatingly sexy smirk he’d ever seen.  

He promptly rolled away.  Flicking on his flashlight, he inspected the underside of the car, eyes brushing over various tubes when suddenly something wet and warm hit his forehead.  He pushed himself further under with his legs, shined the light just right and… jackpot.  

“Your oil pan has a hole in it,” Keith concluded, rolling back out.  “Have you run over anything sharp?”  He wiped the drop on his forehead with the back of his arm, and Lance’s eyes followed the movement.  Keith could feel his blush getting worse.  He stared at Lance, wondering what type of person came to Georgia and flirted with _mechanics_.

“Uh,” he chuckled, cocking his head to the side.  “There was a small, uhm, incident, last night.”  Keith raised his eyebrows.  “Some buddies and I got a little bit lost and I resorted to a slightly drastic method.  They called it urban-wheeling.”

Keith snorted and shifted his weight to his right leg.  “Urban-wheeling?”

“Let’s just say that there are some places in which one should never attempt a u-turn.”

Keith turned away to hide a smile, and went to put away the supplies.

“Well that u-turn’s gonna cost ya ‘bout a hundred-fifty, two-hundred dollars.”

Lance whistled.  “Expensive u-turn.”

The sound of a door shutting caught both of their attentions, and Keith recognized the irritated look on his brother’s face all too well.  He smirked.

“Have a nice chat with Slav?”

Shiro stopped in front of them, straightening his back and plastering on a tight-lipped smile.  “Lovely,” he forced, and Lance shot Keith an amused, slightly confused, glance.  “Didja take a look?”

“Nah, he just stood there and chatted me up.  Pretty well, I gotta say.”

The glint was back in Lance’s eyes, and they were trained on Keith.  Shiro, with the least amount of subtlety possible, repressed a smile.

“Hole in the oil pan,” Keith drawled.  “Result of shitty driving.”

Shiro couldn’t contain a laugh before slipping back into a professional demeanor.  

“ _Excuse_ you, I was forced to make a tough decision, and I chose to rescue my passengers,” Lance argued, stepping closer to Keith.  

Keith rolled his head over to shoot Lance a sideways look.  “I’m sure.”

Despite visibly enjoying the exchange, Lance sputtered, “I’ll have you know that it was difficult.  There was a car coming right at us.”

Shiro’s shoulders shook with silent laughter.  

“My point exactly,” Keith snorted, and Lance rolled his eyes.  

“Yeah yeah yeah.”

“Maybe you should let someone more capable drive the getaway dump.”

Shiro shoved him.

“ _Excuse_ ?!”  Lance sauntered up to Keith, and Keith crossed his arms, avoiding eye contact.  “Are you insinuating that I’m a bad driver?  And insulting my _lady_?!”

“I’m insinuating that your lady’s oil pan has a hole in it from a reckless u-turn.  You can feel free to interpret.”  He leaned to the left, pursing his lips in distaste.  “And you drive a fifth generation corolla.  It speaks for itself.”

Lance sniffed, and held up his (bare) wrist.  “Well, look at the time.  It seems my quota for bullshit has run out.”  He began stepping backwards, eyes trained on his wrist, and Keith couldn’t help it; he laughed.  Lance perked up and before Keith could blink that goddamn smirk was back in place.

“And since you’re such a capable man, this shouldn’t take too long.  I’ll be back tomorrow.”  One wink, and Keith felt like it was August.  

“It might take a few days to get the pan-”

“I’ll be back tomorrow, beautiful!”

And with a wave, he was stomping through the gravel, hips sashaying back and forth.  

After a moment of silence, Shiro asked, “Was that to you or the car?”

Keith honestly wasn’t sure.  “The car.”

Shiro hummed.  Then he grinned, and dread fell over Keith.

“You haven’t talked that much all week.  What happened while I was away?”

“Nothing.”  Keith turned him around and pushed him towards the office.  “Go call for the pan.”

“‘Feel free to _interpret_ ,’” Shiro mimicked, flashing a wink over his shoulder.

“Shut up.”  

“Good thing you’re such a _capable man-_ ”

“Fuck _off_!”

 


	3. August 4th, 2018

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Keith sighed. “It all started when I was nineteen-”
> 
> “Oh God-”
> 
> “I was stupid back then-”
> 
> “Keith-”
> 
> “And I got into something I’m not sure I was ready for-”
> 
> “Keith if you tell the whole thing it’s gonna take years-”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OHMYGOSH HELLO EVERYONE. So, hi, wow, I'm so excited to give you this chapter. I've been waiting a very long time. And you have too -- I apologise! It's been dead week and now it's finals so everything is a mess and I've had ~quite a bit~ of late nights and early mornings, including the weekends so I'm sorry this took longer than usual to get out and it's kinda short but I honestly love it and I hope you do too. Thank you guys for being so sweet in the comments and giving all these kudos and just reading this crazy thing I decided to write while Mom and I were singing in the car, this is the most amazing experience. I have so many things to tease you with and I cannot wait §ԾᴗԾ§
> 
> On another note -- I am notorious for hiding things in my writing and they're never that important to the actual plot but if you notice them they can be kinda fun so I suggest taking a look at the first sentences of the first two chapters. (I am too subtle. I'm sorry)
> 
> Enjoy!!

“So then this kid comes up to me and asks me if the system is supposed to run the way it does and I’m like  _ no _ , obviously not, it’s a piece of shit.”  

Keith nodded and sipped his beer, glancing down at the dark screen of his phone.

“So then he says ‘well, it does,’ and I had to contain myself from saying no SHIT.  So I tell him that when you have to fix multiple errors every time, there is something wrong with the system that  _ should _ be autonomous and he’s all ‘oh, yeah,’ and shows me the code and oh my God, Keith, you would not  _ believe _ \-  what do you keep doing?”  Keith’s eyes snapped up from his phone.  “Are you expecting a call?”  

Keith fumbled.  “Uh- no, I’m not.”

Pidge raised an eyebrow.  “Then why do you keep checking your phone?”

Keith stared at her with wide eyes for a moment before pushing his beer to the edge of the bar and flopping his head onto it.  

“Pidge, I fucked up,” he groaned into the wood.

There was a small pat on his shoulder.  “I’m sure you didn’t fuck up  _ too _ bad-”

“I did.”

“Well- what happened?”

Keith sighed.  “It all started when I was nineteen-”

“Oh  _ God _ -”

“I was stupid back then-”

“Keith-”

“And I got into something I’m not sure I was ready for-”

“Keith if you tell the whole thing it’s gonna take  _ years _ -”

“And then when I was twenty three-”

“ _ Keith _ .”  Her voice was so serious that time that Keith halted in his speech, left ear pressed to the bar and arms dangling at his sides.  He looked up at her, leaving his mouth half-open.

“Twenty three?”  Keith nodded as much as he could, and closed his mouth.  “Is this about what I think it is?”

Keith rolled his head back so his forehead was pressed to the wood and mumbled, “Prob’ly is.”

“Keith… you know you had nothing to do with that.”

There was only one topic that Pidge used that tone with and Keith raised his head quickly, shaking it.  “No, no, it’s not  _ that _ .”  He looked her in the eye, leaning forward slightly.  “I know that.  I’m talking about something… else.”  He slumped over the counter again.  “Something that really is my fault.  Mostly.  Probably?”

Pidge was smiling.  “Keith, you’re rambling again.  What happened today?”

“I don’t  _ ramble _ .”

“You do when you’re drunk.  What happened today?”

“I’m not  _ drunk _ -”

“You’re tipsy and you’re rambling, Keith-”

“You haven’t heard rambling, Pidge, I should introduce you-”

“ _ Keith _ what happened today?!”  She shook his shoulders lightly and the dim lights flickered on her glasses.  Keith watched them move back and forth as he sat up, and turned to stare at the rows of colorful bottles in front of him.  

“It was yesterday,” he corrected.

“Okay, what happened yesterday?”

Keith pinched his eyebrows together.  “I fucked up.”

“Keith come  _ on _ -”

“I saw him again, Pidge.”  She fell silent.  “I gave him a ride.  For  _ days _ .”

“ _ Him  _ him?”

Keith nodded.

Pidge turned forward and leaned on her elbows, staring the same direction as Keith.

“Well, shit.”  They took a few moments to digest the words.  Then Pidge angled towards Keith.  “Days?”

Keith waved a hand.  “An hour and a half.”  She snorted.  

“So what happened?” she prompted again, quietly.  

Keith set about explaining the previous day with vague detail to the bottles behind the bar, and Pidge listened somewhat attentively, nodding and sipping her drink.

“...so then I insinuated that he pay me back by sleeping with me-”

“You did  _ what _ -”

“But I meant coffee-

“Oh my God-”

“And he actually agreed, so I was thinking, I should be excited.”

“Mhm.”

“But it was just awkward.”

“Wow, I’m so surprised.”

“So I left.”

There was finality in the statement, and Pidge leaned back in response, crossing her arms over her chest.  

“So it was awkward-”

“Yes it was.”

“-but you’re still getting coffee.  I fail to see where you fucked up.”

Keith pressed his lips together.  “Pidge, there are a lot of coffee shops in Boston.”

“A fuckton,” she agreed.  

“And I did not name one.  Nor did I name a day, a time, or a method of contact.  He  _ hates  _ me, Pidge.”

Pidge would have laughed, if the last few words hadn’t been so venomous.  Keith was glaring at the Absinthe across the way as if he could actually make it poison.  

“So yeah, that is kind of a fuck-up, but I don’t see how he hates you because of it.”

“That’s not why he hates me, Pidge,” Keith murmured.  He took a swig of his drink, emptying it and pulling it up to his face, contemplating the glass.  “It just proves that he doesn’t actually want to…” he waved a hand, “spend time with me.  All that.”

Pidge pursed her lips.  

“Keith.”

He looked over at her.

“He talked to you for thirty minutes straight.”  Keith looked doubtful, so she added, “Deliberately.”

“He was  _ stuck _ -”

“Keith he climbed over your console on the freeway.”

Keith blew out a breath of air.  “Lance just  _ does _ shit like that-”

“He could’ve stayed in the backseat, you doofus.”  She leaned forward.  “He didn’t.  I’d say he doesn’t  _ hate _ you.  He might think you’re fucking moody and pretentious, because God knows  _ I _ do-”

“Oh thank you.”

“-But he isn’t -- you’re welcome -- guaranteed to avoid you.  Did you ever think that maybe he  _ forgot  _ to ask when?”

Keith scoffed.  “What kind of idiot- oh, yeah.  That makes sense.”

“I would like to highlight the fact that you are also an idiot-”

“Yeah, I know,” he groaned, slumping his face into his hands.  “Still can’t contact him.”

Pidge opened and closed her mouth, leaning back in her chair and sipping her beer.  Then she straightened.  

“You said he’s a professor?”  Keith nodded, and Pidge slammed her glass down, digging through her messenger bag and pulling out her phone.  “Of what?”

“Marine Sci-  _ oh _ .”

“Why I’m here, buddy.”

Keith leaned against her shoulder, peering at the phone.  “There he is!” he chirped, pushing at her so hard she slipped off the stool, bracing herself against the bar.  

“Keith- get  _ off _ or I can’t find it!”

Keith pulled her up and placed her back on the stool.

“Thank you, Keith.”

“ _ Professor and head of Marine Sciences _ ,” Keith read, and Pidge hummed, tapping the name.

“Lezcano-Maro-what?”

“Lezcano-Maroto-Moya,” Keith said quickly, and Pidge blinked at him.  “It’s Cuban.”

“Hot damn,” she responded.  The page loaded.  “Hot  _ damn _ , there’s a lot.”

Keith’s eyes were wide and bright as he read the brief introduction over Pidge’s shoulder.

“Jeez, he’s done a lot of conservation research,” Pidge muttered, scrolling down the page.  She looked at Keith over her shoulder.  “Keith, he’s smart.”

Keith chuckled.  “He may be a genius, but he’s not  _ smart _ .  There’s his phone number.”  He grabbed his own phone off of the bar, flicking around on it for a few seconds before copying down the number.  “Thanks Pidge, you’re the best,” he murmured, slipping into his stool again.  “Should I call him?”

“Considering that this is his work phone, for his office in Connecticut, I would reconsider.”

Keith growled and copied down the email beside the phone number.

“I’ll bet he checks his work email every now and then, even if it is vacation.  I always keep up with mine, but then again I don’t take vacation-”

“I’m sending it,” Keith declared.  

Pidge jumped.  “What?  Already?”  She leaned over his shoulder.  “No.  You can’t send that.”

“Why not?”

“Keith, even I know you need at least more than one word.”

“It gets the message across better than the first time.”

Pidge snorted, but shook her head.  “Explain.”

“Explain what?  I already did!”

“You wrote ‘coffee.’”

“Question mark.”

Pidge shook her head again.  “What?”

“I wrote: Coffee?  With a question mark.”

Pidge held her head in her hands.  “Keith, buddy, pal, my man.”  She slid her face up so she could peek through her fingers.  “You already asked that.  He said yes.  Ask him  _ when _ .”

Keith nodded seriously, and turned to frown at his phone for a few seconds, tapping away.  “There.”

Pidge groaned.  “And  _ you’re _ an author.  Keith, that makes no sense.”

“None of this makes sense!” Keith burst out.  “It doesn’t- nothing about this is normal.  I don’t know how to do this, Pidge.”  His eyes were wild as they set upon her.  “Do  _ I _ even want coffee?”

“Short answer first?”

“Please.”

Pidge sighed.  “Yes.  You do.  You never shut up about this, Keith.”

His brows furrowed.  “I hardly ever talk about-”

“Out  _ loud _ ,” Pidge corrected, and Keith faltered.  

Pidge stood up.  

“Keith.”  The lights cast a yellow glow across his face, catching the chain that looped around his neck and disappeared underneath his T-shirt, glinting at her, and she reached a hand forward, pulling at it.  Shiny brown eyes stared up at her as if she held all the answers in the world, as if they held none.  

“I don’t know as much as Katy does.”  

Keith swallowed, and the chain danced.

“But I know enough to know how  _ big _ this is.  And so what if it’s weird,” she proclaimed, throwing her hands up.  The chain fell around his throat once more, and the object on it tumbled against his chest.  “This whole situation is  _ weird _ .  You can’t go into this and expect it to be normal, and it’s going to be awkward as fuck.”

She prodded him in the chest for emphasis, continuing, “But you have to go.  You’ve…  _ kept _ this for too long.  Just jump in.”  She plopped back into her stool, and grabbed her glass.  

Keith was staring at the bar, rubbing the lacquer with his thumb.  Jump in.  He’d always been good at that.  

“Keith, you’re overthinking this.”

She was more right than she knew.  Keith grabbed his phone.

Pidge watched him type in silence, sipping her beer and bouncing her knee.  

“There.”  He threw the device down, looking up at the ceiling.  “It’s done.  I sent it.”

Pidge frowned.  “You sent it?”

He glanced at her.  “Yeah.”

“Without getting approval?”

“I’m not one of your software kids, Pidge.  Trust me.”  He grabbed his drink.

“I do trust you, but I trust you with my life, not yours.  Let me see.”

He groaned and slid the phone to her.  She tapped in the code and swept her gaze rapidly over the text, pursing her lips and nodding.  “It’s good.  You’re still rambling, but that’s fine.”

Keith squinted.  “It’s only two sentences long.”

“For you?  Rambling.”

“I’m an author.”

“Yeah, and have you  _ read _ your books?  This is rambling.”  She set the phone in front of him.  “But it’s okay.  You gotta stop thinking about it.”

“Yeah right,” he scoffed.  “I was bad before I had any contact.”  He checked the phone.  “This is going to suck.”

“Oh God, are you gonna check it every  _ second _ or something?”

He looked her in the eye and tapped the home button.  

“I’m confiscating it.”  She reached over and he grunted, grabbing the phone and wrestling to keep it.  Pidge got it with a pinch to his wrist.  

“You fight dirty,” he groaned, rubbing his bruise.  She just smiled devilishly, tucking the phone in her pocket.  

“Drink up.  I still have to tell you about  _ fricking _ Johnny.”

“The kid that showed you the errors?”

“The kid that didn’t think errors were a problem.”

Keith chuckled, and leaned on the counter.  “I’m ready.  Hit me.”

“So he shows me the code…” 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you're as in love with their friendship as I am. Because I am /obsessed/ with platonic Kidge. 
> 
> Also you cannot begin to believe how excited I am to show you the next chapter. Like. SO excited. It's gonna be so good. Some questions will be answered. There will also be more questions. It's gonna be great. 
> 
> Sneak Peak: Read if you dare
> 
> “Besides,” Keith remarked, “I kind of assumed you knew how to eat.” He looked up from his phone, running his eyes over Lance’s face, his food on the counter. “I was wrong.”
> 
> “Oh come on- don’t laugh -- as if it’s rare; you’re an asshole.”
> 
> Keith was ashamed to say that the insult made him smile a little wider. 
> 
>  
> 
> And this too:
> 
> Lance’s lip wobbled. “How can you say that?”
> 
> Keith felt as if he’s been slapped. The sun burned in his eyes. 
> 
>  
> 
> Have a good week everyone!!


	4. August 6, 2018

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI GUYS
> 
> It's been a while.  
> Yeah... sorry about that. If you're new, know that I'm saying this because it's been seven months since my last update; if you're old, know that this fic is my baby and I have so much to tell you about these bois; and no matter when you came know that I'm back! It's summer and I graduated so there's like significantly no homework and I have time to give this fic the love and attention I've built up for it. 
> 
> Since it's been so long and I have that rule that before I publish one chapter the next must have at least one draft I have been sitting on this chapter for seven months while I faced a murderous schedule and also murderous writer's block. I just couldn't figure out Lancey Lance's backstory but guess what: probably about 20-30 intermittent hours of research on the great country of Cuba later and I am prepared with a proper backstory and everything. I'm very excited to share it all with you. Cuba is an incredibly interesting place and its relationship to the US is also incredibly... interesting, so I chose to dive in as much as physically possible. You need to know something about Cuba? Hit me up. I could almost visit the country and not sound like a complete dumbass at this rate. Exciting, right?
> 
> Also, I have just completed my fourth year of Spanish and still can't speak it for shit and find really lame things cute and funny so if you don't know Spanish the translations are in the end notes and if you do PLEASE HELP. If you see something, say something. Cultural issues, character issues, linguistic issues -- if you are hispanic and you see something gross tell me and I'll fix it. Thank you so much.
> 
> Anyways, our boys are at a very interesting turning point. How will it turn out?
> 
> My puns are bad.
> 
> Read away!

Keith was early.  He knew he was early, and he knew that being early would just give him more time to sit and stress, but it was sitting and stressing in his apartment or sitting and stressing here, and at least now he was outside.

He was outside, standing in front of Tatte Cafe and completely unprepared to be there.  Physically, he was fine. He had thick, black jeans. A light T-shirt. He’d remembered his wallet, and his phone, and his shoes.  Mentally, though -- mentally, he was in shambles. His hands were clammy in his gloves, and he kept biting his lip; he was standing in front of Tatte cafe, staring down the black door set into a sea of red brick.  It was a double door, and one was open, the other closed. Keith could smell the pastries. 

A woman in blue stepped around him to get inside, and the flick of her ponytail had him blinking and stepping forward -- he still wasn’t ready but, oh well.  

The floor was white tile and the display was made of glass, full to its brim of baked goods on a counter that wrapped around the L-shaped room.  Keith surveyed it, noting that the line was sizeable but manageable, the wooden tables were full, and there was someone sitting at the bar-style counter by the window, legs hanging off of a stool and head bowed over their phone- oh.

“Lance?”

The man’s head snapped up, his back straightening as soon as he saw Keith.  For a split second, a familiar quirk of the eyebrows and a soft smile passed over his expression, and Keith wanted to laugh, because how many times had he seen that look?  But it melted off of Lance’s face, and he stood up, and Keith kind of wanted to cry, too.

Keith took a deep breath. 

“Hi,” Lance breathed, allowing a grin to stretch over his face.  

“Hi,” Keith responded.  “You’re uh, early.”

Lance smirked.  “So are you.” 

_ I was tired of waiting. _  “Do you want to get coffee?”

Lance nodded, grabbing his phone and stuffing it in his pocket.  “Yeah -- it smells so good in here. I’ll have to bring Hunk; he’ll go nuts.”

Keith allowed himself a small smile.  “They have the best…” he looked around the room.  “Everything.”

Lance chuckled.  “Good to know.” 

And then he was walking around Keith, leading the way to the line on the other side of the L.  It was darker here, and the hanging lights cast yellow across Lance’s face, rough with stubble.  

Keith felt very out of place.

“Do you come here often?”

“All the time.  It’s my favorite.”

Lance nodded, tilting his head up to read the menu.  “You live close?”

“A few blocks down.”

Lance’s eyes flicked back to Keith, and some of the strain left his voice when he said, “How long have you lived there?” 

“Since I moved to Boston.  It’s nice up here.”

“Hunk really likes it over in Newton -- his wife got in yesterday, and we spent all day walking around.  It’s… cute. Kind of suburban in a city sort of way, you know?”

Keith did know.  He drove through Newton quite a bit.  He hummed. 

“It’s different up here,” Lance continued.  “Not bad different, but. It feels busier? More open? I don’t know,” he laughed.  He was blushing.

“I know what you mean,” Keith said, rocking his weight onto his right hip.  “This city is one of the more diverse ones I’ve been to, in structure.”

“How many have you been to?”

They stepped forward with the line.  Keith was blushing too. “Uhm… I’ve only ever lived in three.  But I’ve been to a ton -- book tours. I really liked San Francisco.  And New Orleans.” They stepped up again. Keith felt stupid, and also happy.  “You?”

“I haven’t really toured many places, I’ve just… lived in them.”  He laughed lightly, shooting Keith a playful look. “That’s probably not the way you’re supposed to do it, but.  I like traveling. And it always seems like you need to stay longer to really get a feel for somewhere, you know?”

Keith nodded.  “There’s always more to find.”  

The look Lance gave him was strange, not in a negative way.  “That’s-” he smiled, looking down at his feet. “I agree.” 

“You seem surprised.”  Lance looked up, mouth open slightly and stuck in a smile, eyes wide.  

“No- kind of?  I never expected you to enjoy traveling.  I don’t know why not.”

Keith shrugged, and reassured, “That’s fair.  I honestly didn’t want to that much when I was growing up.  Well- Japan. I wanted to go to Japan.”

“Still?”

“Yeah.  I told my daughter we’ll go after she graduates.”

Lance’s lips quirked playfully.  “Learned Japanese yet?”

Keith channeled any sass he had into a press of his lips and an eye roll.  “Not yet, no.” He bit his lip to avoid grinning, and looked off to the side.  “Pero, hablo un poco español.”

When he glanced back at Lance, he had to bite his lip again.  The Cuban man’s eyes were comically wide, his posture was stiff, and his gaze was trained on Keith.

“You-”

“Hello!  How may I help you today?”

Lance spun around, staring at the woman behind the counter for a moment before gathering himself and sending a smile her way.  “Hi, can I get a house latte and a cinnamon bun?” 

“Of course.  Is that all?”

Keith was still standing there, failing to contain a grin when Lance glanced back at him, opened his mouth, and then closed it.  The grin died a little on Keith’s face, and Lance looked a bit horrified. He turned back to the woman. 

“Yup.”  It was strained.

Keith ordered a cold brew after Lance had paid for his own meal.  

Back at the bar counter again, they sat down, and Lance shook his head.

“No puedo creerlo.”

“Creélo.”

“Es  _ muy _ extraño, dios mío.  Cuándo aprendiste?” 

“Cuando yo estaba en Richmond.”

Lance had a very strange look on his face.  

“Repite ‘yo’.”

“Qué?”

“Repite ‘yo’.” Lance said again, looking at Keith intensely.  

“Por qué me mirás así?”

“Usaste el vos!  Qué horror, _Keith_ _estás hablando como si fueras argentino_.”

Keith stared at Lance with purpose and mirth.  “ _ Sho _ sé.”

Lance looked bewildered and gleeful all at once.  Keith bit his lip again.

“Have you been to Argentina?”

“No.”

“Then how…”

And he didn’t think before saying, “My boyfriend.”  He thought about it after he said it, though. He thought about it a lot.  His thought was:  _ shit. _

“Oh.”  Lance cleared his throat.  “You don’t have a husband?”

Keith closed his eyes and laughed quietly.  “No.”

“I’m not saying it’s odd to have a kid with a boyfriend; it’s not-”

“No, no, you’re fine.  He's not the one I had my daughter with.  It’s been… a long time, since him.”

“Oh,” Lance said again.  Keith had to laugh. “You have a wife?”

“No.”  He cleared his throat.  “My family is complicated.”

Lance offered a small smile.  “So I see.”

They sipped their drinks.

“Keith,” Lance said, and Keith pulled his gaze away from a dog crossing the street.  

“Yeah?”

“You know what this means.”

Keith already had an unimpressed look on his face.

“It means that you speak weird English  _ and _ weird Spanish.  I don’t know if I should be impressed or disappointed.”

Keith groaned.  “I do  _ not _ .”

“Georgia and Argentina, damn.”

“Would you like to talk about  _ your _ accents?”

Lance’s smile wilted with pride, but his eyes stayed bright.  “That’s not-”

“It’s gotten weirder, you know,” Keith remarked, sucking on his straw.  

“Excuse you, it has not gotten  _ weirder _ , it’s only been  _ influenced _ -”

“Lance, you sound Cuban, Georgian, and  _ Welsh _ at the same time.  I just sound like a weird southern.”

Lance was laughing into his hand, eyes crinkled and shoulders shaking.  Keith’s chest did something familiar.

“And let’s not even discuss the squirrel incident.”

“Hey!” Lance exclaimed, pulling a hand to his chest.  “That was one time! It’s a weird word, it is ridiculous to-”

“Oh,  _ it was more than one time, _ ” Keith snickered, and Lance huffed, turning to the pastry in front of him.

Keith’s phone buzzed in his pocket, and he pulled it out, glancing away from Lance’s attempt at eating and simultaneously containing a grin.  

 

_ Pidge, 10:07 _

_ I think I left my bra at your house _

 

Keith snorted, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

 

_ 10:07 _

_ Go get it. _

 

“What is it?”

“Pidge left her bra at my apartment,” he informed, exasperated fondness seeping into his voice.  

 

_ Pidge, 10:08 _

_ I can’t leave work.  Can I come by tonight _

 

There was a choking sound, and Keith looked up to see Lance leaning over the counter with both hands on his mouth.

“Lance?!” Keith threw his phone down, standing up and reaching his hands out.

Lance waved him off, coughing loudly and swallowing with a grimace.  He grabbed his latte and took a large gulp.

“Are you okay?” Keith asked, and it was as Lance was nodding that Keith realized he was standing behind him with a hand on both of his shoulders.  Lance was even leaning into him.

Keith stepped back with grace, eyes trained on Lance as he sat back down.  

“Sorry,” Lance gasped after a moment, setting the mostly-empty Latte down.  He looked at it for a moment. “Damn, that was really good.” Keith chuckled, checking his phone.  

 

_ Pidge, 10:08 _

_ I’ll make you dinner _

 

“I just wasn’t expecting- I don’t know  _ why _ , that’s really not that weird, but it is, uh, funny.”  Lance didn’t sound particularly amused when he huffed out a laugh.  Keith half heard him, eyes trained on his keyboard.

 

_ 10:09 _

_ Go for it _

 

“Besides,” Keith remarked, “I kind of assumed you knew how to eat.”  He looked up from his phone, running his eyes over Lance’s face, his food on the counter.  “I was wrong.”

“Oh come on-  _ don’t laugh _ \-- as if it’s  _ rare _ ; you’re an  _ asshole _ .”

Keith was ashamed to say that the insult made him smile a little wider.  

 

After half an hour of it, his face hurt.  Lance had a friend in Wales who was obsessed with whales, and one time he tried to swim with a porpoise while he was drunk and it guided him back to shore.  Lance met a girl in the Dominican Republic who could dance as well as he could (better, he admitted, even though he said he’d never admit it) and they competed together -- Lance still had the ribbons.  Lance’s crusty corolla broke down for good somewhere in Florida, and he cried when it did. Lance was slightly appalled that Keith hadn’t cut off his mullet with the turn of the century, but he liked the long look Keith had now (Lance himself had gone through some properly terrible hairstyles, including dying it blonde on a dare and growing it out to have frosted tips -- Keith thought he was going to die from lack of oxygen when Lance showed him a picture, insisting it had been appropriate at the time). 

Lance was sad to hear about the mustang, glad to hear about the new one, and amused to no end that Keith’s taxi was a corolla.  Lance was very good at pretending to be interested in the history of jazz. Lance asked about his books, his popularity, and his current project (and Lance was unsubtly impressed by Keith’s books, popularity, and current project. Keith didn’t make too much effort to control his reaction to that).  

The sun was peeking through the clouds and half-blinding Keith when Lance asked, “What’s your daughter like?”

Keith let his hand fall from his eyes, opening his mouth prematurely and waiting a moment for the words to come.  Lisa, he was asked about Lisa. “She’s… she’s the most amazing person.” Pride filled his chest. “She’s lovely.”

Lance had a delicate look on his face.  The sun fell across it, and Keith glimpsed a flash of sorrow.  Keith recognized it, but couldn’t pinpoint it.

“She’s an incredible sax player.  Her piano skills are through the roof as well, and she played clarinet in middle school, but.”  He grinned lazily, meeting Lance’s eyes. “She was meant for the saxophone.”

Lance leaned his cheek onto a propped up hand and asked, “Is that why you love jazz?”

“I don’t know if it’s that or if she loves it because of me,” he chuckled.  Lance was grinning at him, features softened around the edges. 

“When she was little, she used to pretend that she was in a band. She put on air guitar performances to the radio.”  

Lance laughed softly.  

“And when she was five I gave her model cars, and she  _ loved _ them.”

“Yeah?”

“They all had a personality and a backstory -- there was a lot of drama between them when she was eleven.”

“Oh that’s  _ adorable _ .  Which was her favorite?”

Keith propped his head up on his hand, mirroring Lance.  “The Volkswagen Beetle. She called it Herbie and beat it to hell.”

Lance’s eyes closed as he laughed, this time.  There was a lapse of silence. Unwilling to take his gaze off of Lance, Keith watched as he opened his eyes again to stare back, the lazy grin still on his face.  The light caught him again, and his irises glinted in it. They blinked a couple of times, and all of a sudden Lance was sitting up, looking over at his empty mug and playing his hands around it.  The absence of his attention was startling, and Keith sat up as well, swallowing. 

He checked his phone.   _ 10:47 _ .

“I should- uh, get back to Hunk and Shay,” Lance murmured, still staring intently at his mug.  

“Okay,” Keith said.

When Lance looked at him again, it was with a small smile and something in his eyes that left a taste of regret in Keith’s mouth so suddenly that he was swallowing it away, taking a deep breath.   _ Ignore it, ignore it _ .

Lance stood up with hesitance, and Keith quickly followed.  They picked up their things in silence and walked over to the bins, depositing the mugs.  Keith waved to the woman behind the counter as they wormed their way to the door, and she waved back as they disappeared through it.  

It was hot on the street.  The sound of a distant siren rose over a laughter from a couple on the other side of the road, and a baby cried off to their left.  The mother shushed it soothingly as Lance turned to Keith, leaning his left shoulder against the brick wall. 

“That was fun,” Lance said, and Keith mirrored him, crossing his arms.  

“Agreed.”

“It’s, uh,” Lance bit his lip.  “It’s good to see you again.”

The words sounded like a confession.

Lance began to push himself off the wall, but lingered when Keith said, “Yeah, it really is.”

And they were stuck there.  Keith didn’t know why Lance was still pausing, watching, waiting, but he knew that his own reasons laid in words unsaid.  So he didn’t move. 

There were things he should say and things he knew somewhere in the back of his head led to a terrible, terrible idea, but he ignored that.  

“I wish you luck,” Lance finally said, and it struck Keith that Lance’s words felt like a goodbye.  It struck Keith that he was  _ not _ okay with that.  

“Do you want to do this again, tomorrow?” Keith blurted, ignoring the way he felt his eyes widen, ignoring the hope, pushing it down even as he saw it reflected in Lance’s eyes for a split second.  

“I-” Lance started, and stopped.  His eyebrows knitted together in something a lot like pain, and Keith’s hope cracked.

The sun slipped out of the clouds again, and Lance was glowing with it.

“I don’t think I can, Keith.”

Keith felt sick.  The chain weighed on his neck, pulled down by the object that burned against his chest, underneath his shirt, and he squinted in the light.  

“Why not?” he found himself asking, his tone far more defensive than he’d expected.

“You know why, Keith.”

Keith’s throat tightened, and this time, his voice sounded small.  “I don’t.”

The siren’s wail got louder as an ambulance streaked across the intersection behind Lance.

Once it died down, Lance said, calm as could be, “I don’t trust myself.”

Those words could have meant so many things, but Keith understood them instantly, and before he could filter his thoughts they were spilling out of his mouth.  
“You don’t have to.”

Lance inhaled sharply and squeezed his eyes closed, blowing the air out through his nose.  “Keith, you don’t understand-”

“I do, Lance.”  

Keith uncrossed his legs, pushing himself into a taller stance.  

The object burned as he said, “It’s your decision-”

“ _ Keith _ -”

“-but you can give it a chance.”

Lance’s lip wobbled.  “How can you say that?”

Keith felt as if he’d been slapped.  The sun burned in his eyes. 

“Keith, I’m not about to fuck up your life.”

_ Too late _ , a bitter, buried part of Keith piped up.  He pressed his lips together and pushed it back down.

“How could you do that now?”

Lance laughed thickly.  “How?” The baby behind them screamed again, and this time its mother’s coos were edging on frantic.

“How?” Keith prompted.

“You have a family, Keith.”

“And?”

“And- and I have my own… things, and f- _ feelings _ -” he stuttered, cringing.  He opened his mouth as if to try again, to do it better.

Keith furrowed his eyebrows suspiciously while Lance searched for words.  Something was wrong…

“If I keep seeing you, Keith, I don’t know what will happen, but I don’t  _ fit _ into your life right now.”

The clouds had all but moved away, and the sun beat down on them.

“You know that Pidge is just a friend, right?”

Lance blinked around wide eyes.   _ Jackpot _ .

“Katy is Lisa’s mother, and I live alone.  So if you’re worried about the past pulling something apart here you  _ shouldn’t be _ .”

A group of teenagers walked by them, laughing, and Lance stared at Keith.

“I think I misunderstood something, earlier,” he finally said.  

“Yeah, I think so.”  Something like a smile snuck onto Lance’s face, and he dropped his head for a moment.  When he looked up, he had his bottom lip in between his teeth, and let it go without breath. 

“Keith,” he murmured.  Keith watched him in a stupid, unguarded way.  “I still can’t-  _ predict _ \- anything, here.”

Keith realized that he was smiling -- just a little, only softly.  Any sense of success was dimmed slightly by the fear eating away at his stomach, but it was there all the same.

So he said, “That’s okay.”  And then he said, “I can’t either.”

And even though it was as small as Keith’s, Lance’s smile was as blinding as the sun.

“Tomorrow at ten?”

“Yes,” Keith agreed, recklessly.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pero, hablo un poco español: But, I speak a little Spanish.  
> No puedo creerlo: I can't believe it.  
> Creélo: Believe it (a/n: hello Naruto)  
> Es muy extraño, dios mío. Cuándo aprendiste? That's really weird, my God. When did you learn?  
> Cuando yo estaba en Richmond: When I was in Richmond.  
> Repite ‘yo’: Repeat 'I'.  
> Qué?: What?  
> Repite ‘yo’: Repeat 'I'.  
> Por qué me mirás así?: Why are you looking at me like that?  
> Usaste el vos! Qué horror, Keith estás hablando como si fueras argentino.: You used the vos! How horrible, Keith you're speaking as if you were Argentinian!  
> Sho sé.: I know
> 
> Note: Argentinians are great nothing meant against their accents there was just this thing in my Spanish class where none of us could understand Argentinian Spanish so we all learned about it and there's this word that's just super common slang for 'you' so instead of saying tú they say vos and Lance doesn't do it so he's all oh you learned Spanish but it wasn't my Spanish. Also with their accents y sounds like sh sometimes so that' why I wrote "sho" instead of "yo." I think it's the best thing ever and I talk about it too much so I had to write it in somehow. 
> 
> Sneak peak to next time ooh:
> 
> Keith didn’t say anything for a moment. Lance watched him, eyes flicking slowly over his face. It was quiet. Keith couldn’t see the stars or the trees from where he was sitting, but he could see Lance. It felt the same. Keith loved him.  
>  “It’s almost one in the morning,” Lance said, quietly. Keith nodded. Lance watched him a beat more, a look in his eye that Keith couldn’t quite place. His attention was like a trance; Keith felt entirely at the will of those eyes. “Keith, why are you here?”  
>  Keith responded in a voice far softer than he’d expected. “There’s something you haven’t asked me yet.”
> 
>  
> 
> Also a note that because I am still editing these chapters the sneak peeks may differ from the next chapter. I'll try not to though. I'm currently at 13,500ish words -- the next chapter was gonna be 3 pages and now it's 7, so. There's that. Until next time!


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